Klopp assesses Van Dijk leadership and Shaqiri potential
Virgil van Dijk will relish his increased responsibility of being a captain at Liverpool, according to Jürgen Klopp.
The manager explained on Friday that an internal voting process by the squad established the centre-back as the team’s third-choice skipper – less than a year after joining the club – for the occasions when neither Jordan Henderson nor James Milner is in the starting XI.
Fellow Dutchman Georginio Wijnaldum was selected as fourth in line.
“I really think Millie and Hendo are doing an outstanding job for the club and the team,” added Klopp in a later chat with the national press.
“Being ambassador for the club on one side and impressive for the team on the other side is brilliant. They combine pretty much everything.
“When I came in I built a players’ committee. There were five to six players including Lucas Leiva, Adam Lallana and Phil Coutinho.
“This team has grown now and they all have very, very demanding and confident players in the squad so you can decide who of them you want.
“It was a close decision. Dejan [Lovren] was close, Adam was close. They all had their votes. The players see it in the right way – that the players could do the job.”
Van Dijk wore the armband for the midweek victory over Red Star Belgrade as the Reds assumed top spot in Champions League Group C with a 4-0 result.
With the Netherlands international a mainstay of the side, Liverpool made history last weekend by registering the fewest number of goals conceded – three – in their opening nine league matches of a season.
Cardiff City visit Anfield this afternoon seeking to become the first away team to score in a Premier League game at the stadium since February, with Van Dijk having been involved in each of those nine successive clean sheets.
“Virgil is still young; he looks more of a man than he really is,” said Klopp.
“There is nothing wrong with that and he can still improve. If you see and hear him you think there is big distance between him and you because he looks impressive.
“It is good for him to have this responsibility and there will be a day for sure when Gini will wear the armband. He will be very proud of that as well.
“These two guys do a similar thing in Holland for the national team. It is a natural thing. The boys saw it as well and that is why they have this committee.”
Xherdan Shaqiri impressed throughout Wednesday’s European fixture, helping to create the opening goal for Roberto Firmino before directly setting up the second for Mohamed Salah with an assist Klopp described as ‘genius link-up play’.
And the boss is excited by the scope of the attacker’s potential.
“I don’t think anybody has an idea in the moment how good Shaq can be,” he said. “It’s not a criticism, it’s just how it is. I knew him when he was 19 at Bayern and he was already an outstanding talent.
“You can disappear a bit. Inter Milan and then Stoke. Thank God, he didn’t disappear. He always had his moments. When I asked for us to cut a few scenes of Shaqiri, nobody said, ‘Come on, Shaqiri? Really?’
“Signing him was a logical thing to do. He’s still not the finished article. He still has a lot of space for improvement and that’s really good. He gives us something different. So far we haven’t really used his set-pieces but they are outstanding.”